SCI-FI WAR MOVIE: Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

                “Edge of Tomorrow” (also known as “Live. Die. Repeat”) was a Tom Cruise vehicle based on a Japanese novel entitled All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka.  The film adaptation has been described as a combination of “Groundhog Day” and “Starship Troopers”.  It was a moderate box office success, but a sequel is on the way.  It was nominated for Saturn Awards for Sci-Fi Film (losing to “Interstellar”), Director (Doug Liman), Actor (Cruise), Actress (Emily Blunt), and Writing.  It premiered on June 6, 2014 to promote comparisons to D-Day.

                The film opens with Earth in the midst of an alien invasion.  The mimics are extraterrestrials who want to exploit Earth’s resources.  They are a whirligig of tentacles and very nasty pieces of work.  As in most alien invasion movies, they are vastly superior to Earth forces.  It will take a miracle to beat them.  Cruise plays Maj. William Cage.  He is a PR expert for the United Defense Force.  When he is tasked to embed with the planned invasion of France to start the retaking of alien-occupied Europe, he points out to the commanding general (Brendan Gleeson) that he is a talker, not a fighter.  This gets him assigned to the first wave – as cannon fodder.  His new squad and Sergeant Farrell (Bill Pullman) do not welcome him as a game-changer and as all predict, he is killed almost immediately.  But in the blink of an eye, he has gone back in time 24 hours.  He repeats the day over and over with the same result, except that each of his deaths is different.  Naturally, he cannot convince his mates that he is in a time loop.  Grunts and gunnies are not noted for their cognitive imaginations.  He does end up encountering another looper, Sgt. Rita Vrataski (Blunt).  She is known as the “Angel of Verdun” for her heroics in battle there.  She is one bad-ass warrior.  The kind of female you only find in sci-fi movies.  Together they must save Earth by destroying the alien “brain”.

                “Edge of Tomorrow” is a very creative movie.  Of course, this is mostly to the credit of the novel, but the screenplay has done a good job adapting it and Liman has done an admirable job bringing it to the screen.  It is not without its clichés.  Farrell is a stereotype, although Pullman plays him with such swagger that he is the upper echelon of his type.  The squad is heterogeneous, but we don’t find out if any are from Brooklyn.  The movie is totally focused on Cage and Vrataski.  They are great characters.  Cage is a role tailored for Cruise. In other words, he is a cocky asshole.  Cruise did his own stunts and was very hands on in the script tweakings.  He insisted on added humor, which works well.  Blunt is amazing as a character that would give Ripley a run for her money.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with this trend of strong female warriors in sci-fi films.

                This is clearly a war movie.  Alien warriors face off against an army.  The aliens are reminiscent of the bugs in “Starship Troopers”.  They do not fire weapons, but they are intelligent.  They purposely lost at Verdun to lure the humans into a grand invasion.  That invasion is one of the great battle scenes.  It is amphibious, but the Higgins boats are airborne.  Cage’s craft is hit and they have to drop in chaos and into chaos.  It’s a slaughter.  The mimics are much more difficult to kill than the bugs in “Starship”.  The invasion scene is repeated with different deaths for Cage so it doesn’t get old.  This movie not only has a training montage, it has a Cage death montage.  The movie finishes with a behind the lines suicide mission to take out the command center.  This is another pulsating scene that is unfortunately marred by a sappy ending.  I did mention they are making a sequel, right?

                Visually the movie is excellent.  The CGI is top-notch.  The aliens are scary and intimidating.  Once again, as in all alien invasion movies, they are virtually unbeatable and it will take a miracle for a happy ending.  Cage and his mates are equipped with exoskeletons called Combat Jackets.  They allow the soldiers to run faster and jump higher.  They are the futuristic equivalents of PF Flyers.  Unfortunately, they provide little armored protection.  They are armed with a high caliber machine gun and a rocket launcher.  Vrataski prefers to use a sword because she’s a badass.  As usual for this type of movie, the UDF apparently has no artillery and there is no shore bombardment before the invasion.  Even more perplexing, there is no evidence that nukes have been used even though Europe has fallen and appears to be uninhabited.

                “Edge of Tomorrow” is one of the best sci-fi war movies.  Cruise and Blunt make a good team and their acting is excellent.  The role was perfect for Cruise and Blunt is a revelation as one of the great sci-fi war heroines.  The rest of the cast is supportive, if marginalized.  There is plenty of action for the war movie lover and the scenario and aliens are unique so it is not simply a WWII movie shifted to the future.

GRADE  =  A

 

SCI-FI WAR MOVIE CLICHES

Here are the results of my analysis of sci-fi war movie cliches.  I used the following movies: 

Aliens (Al)
Battle:  Los Angeles (BLA)
The Last Starfighter (LS)
War of the Worlds (WW)
Edge of Tomorrow (ET)
Ender's Game (EG)
Rogue One (RO)
Attack of the Clones (AC)
Star Wars (SW)
John Carter (JC)
Return of the Jedi (RJ)
Pacific Rim  (PR)
War for the Planet of the Apes (WPA)
Independence Day (ID)
Avatar (Av)
Starship Troopers (ST)

1. The aliens (or bad guys) are the superior power.  (Al, BLA, LS, WW, ET, RO, SW, JC, RJ, PR, ID, Av, ST) = 81%
2. The victors win mainly by luck or an uncontrollable factor.  (BLA, WW, ET, ID)  =  25
3. The victors have one key individual who they could not have won without.  (Al, LS, ET, EG,  RO, SW, JC, WPA, Av)  =  56
4. All of the attacks are frontal.  (ET, EG, AC, JC, PR, WPA, ID, Av, ST)  =  56
5. There is a humorous side-kick.  (LS, RO, JC, RJ, WPA)  =  31
6. The victors weapons are more primitive. (WPA, WW, JC, ID, RJ, Av) = 38
7. The aliens have a "brain".  (Al, BLA, ET, ID, ST)  =  25
8. The alien warriors are mindless.  (BLA, EG, ET, ID, ST, AC)  =  38
9. The aliens have a weak spot that leads to their defeat.  (BLA, LS, ET, RO, SW, PR, ID)  =  44
10. The victors are a small heterogeneous unit.  (Al, BLA, ET, EG, RO, AC, PR)  =  44

As you can see, all of the cliches have some merit.  Three occurred in more than half of the movies (1, 3, and 4).  By far the most common trope is the enemy is superior to the good guys and should win.  We love for underdogs to triumph.  But, of course, they don't.

Aliens   (1, 3, 7, 10)  =  40%
Battle:  Los Angeles  ( 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10)  =  60
The Last Starfighter   (1, 3, 5, 9)  =  40
War of the Worlds  (1, 2, 6)   =  30
Edge of Tomorrow  (1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10) =  80
Ender's Game  (3, 4, 8, 10)  =  40
Rogue One  (1, 3, 5, 9, 10)  =  50
Attack of the Clones  (4, 8, 10)  =  30 
Star Wars  (1, 3, 9)  =  30 
John Carter  (1, 3, 4, 5, 6)  =  50
Return of the Jedi  (1, 5, 6)  =  30 
Pacific Rim  (1, 4, 9, 10)  =  40 
War for the Planet of the Apes  (3, 4, 5, 6)  =  40
Independence Day  (1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9)  =  70
Avatar   (1, 3, 4, 6)  =  40
Starship Troopers  (1, 4, 7, 8)  =  40

Surprisingly, the most cliche-ridden movie is the excellent "Edge of Tomorrow".  Equally surprising, the Star Wars movies have the least tropes.  Even more shockingly, the ridiculous "War of the Worlds" has only three of the cliches.

EDGE OF TOMORROW (4) vs. ROGUE ONE (5)

VS.

ACTING - "Edge of Tomorrow" is a Tom Cruise movie, but he is ably helped by the cast. Cruise is good in one of his best performances. The film is something of a buddy pick with Emily Blunt more than holding her own. Her Vrataski is not just a bad-ass soldier, she is the most bad-ass soldier - male or female. Blunt is awesome in the role. She trained three months for it and the result was one of the best female action heroes of the 21^st Century. She was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Actress and won the Critics' Choice Award. Bill Paxton plays a typical cinematic sergeant, but he is perfect as Farrell. The rest of the squad is generic, but well-played. GRADE = A

"Rogue One" is not an all-star epic. Most of the cast is not well-known. The main star is Felicity Jones as Jyn. She is your typical feisty sci-fi heroine. Jones is good, but not great. Diego Luna plays the roguish Casian. They have some chemistry. They were both nominated for Saturn Awards for acting. Mads Mikkelsen and Forest Whitaker bring some gravitas. The rest of the cast is fine, but it is really the characters that you remember, not the acting. GRADE = B

ENTERTAINMENT - EOT is a looper movie. This means the characters are reliving events over and over. So you get to see Tom Cruise get killed many times and in creative ways. The movie takes the small unit, mission behind the lines into sci-fi territory. It is entertaining to see how the screenwriter handles this. The clichés (ex. Cage is in need of redemption) would have been tiresome in a regular war movie. Although the film has some cracking action and suspense, this is leavened with some humor. The aliens are scary and worthy adversaries. The movie builds well to the conclusion, but then tacks on a happy ending that keeps it from being a great movie. It's still damn good, though. GRADE = B

After a long string of disappointing Star Wars movies, "Rogue One" was a very pleasant surprise. It jettisoned the elements aimed at tweens and went back to what made the first two movies great. As a prequel to the original, it taps in to the mythology and brings that story full-circle. There is a romance that is not fun-sucking. The villainy of the Empire is firmly established and the appearance of Darth Vader is a kick. The good guys are a heterogeneous crew that are easy to root for. The movie finishes with a great battle that mixes infantry combat with aerial combat and meanwhile a heroic trio is infiltrating enemy headquarters. But what sets it apart is the realistic ending that does not insult the audience. GRADE = A

COMBAT - The opening invasion scene is among the best in war movie history. It is very intense with the shocking appearance of the aliens and the shocking death of the main character early in the movie. The scene is repeated in smaller chunks as Cage tries different moves to survive. The movie finishes with the squad assault on the alien brain. GRADE = B

"Rogue One" has three combat set pieces. The first is an urban ambush that reintroduces us to just how ineffective Stormtroopers are. The second is the "Dambusters"-like assault on the research facility. Neither of these is special, but the attack on Scarif is a masterpiece. It combines WWII infantry combat of the commando variety with Korean War jet combat with Napoleonic War fighting ships combat. It's probably the best battle in sci-fi war movie history. GRADE = A

ENEMY - The mimics come in two forms. The vast majority are Drones which are shape-shifters who can hide underground. They can fire explosive projectiles and are very fast in their movements. They remind a bit of the bugs in "Starship Troopers" and they are equally hard to kill. Rarely an Alpha is encountered. They are bigger and badder than the Drones. If an Alpha is killed, time restarts and the enemy learns from its mistakes or adjusts to human strategy and tactics. There is some real creativity here. GRADE = B

In most sci-fi war movies the enemy is aliens whose "soldiers" are either vastly superior to Earthlings or their vehicles are. The Star Wars universe is more of an insurgency. So, while the enemy is not some scary creatures, the bad guys do have personalities. For instance, Darth Vader is #3 on AFI's Greatest Villains list. The main villain in this episode is Krennic and he is above average, but he ain't no Xenomorph queen. If you like your enemies with the ability to threaten you verbally, this movie stands out in the tournament. GRADE = B
ANALYSIS - This was a close match, but I think the better war movie won. "Edge of Tomorrow" is more of a sci-fi movie than a war movie and so is "Rogue One", but Rogue has more of a traditional battle in it and it takes up a large amount of the running time. It is one of the greatest prequels ever made.

ROGUE ONE = 34
EDGE OF TOMORROW = 33

EDGE OF TOMORROW (4) vs. ENDER'S GAME (13)

VS.

PLOT - “Edge of Tomorrow” is about defense against an alien invasion. The Mimics have conquered Europe and are threatening Great Britain. A publicity agent for the United Defense Force named Cage is reluctant to embed with the invasion of France (he's a talker, not a fighter) so he is demoted and put in a squad that will be in the assault. The invasion is a disaster and Cage is killed, but ends up in a “Groundhog Day” situation where he dies and repeats the previous day. He hooks up with a woman warrior named Vrataski who had the same power, but lost it. They work together to get off the beach and destroy the alien brain. The plot is very inventive and yet maintains several tropes. Although it has some elements of the traditional squad war movie, there is little character development. After all, it is a Tom Cruise movie. But it is also a buddy movie with Cage and Vrataski saving mankind. There is some kick-ass combat which leads to the standard infiltration and decapitation scene. The movie is marred by a sappy ending. GRADE = A
“Ender’s Game” is based on a popular novel. The Earth is challenged by an alien race (think bugs from "Starship Troopers"). Humans were victorious, but the threat remains. To counter this threat the military is recruiting and training young people who have the ability to play a real-life video game that maneuvers the Earth fleet to victory. Ender is the chosen one. He goes through a young adult version of a war movie boot camp. He bonds with a feisty female and deals with a bully. He is pushed by a Machiavellian and mentored by a Jediesque figure. This leads to a climactic battle where Ender and his crew of teenagers attack the enemy planet. Unfortunately, the creative plot feels rushed and parts are not believable, even for a sci-fi movie. The character development is weak. In a nice twist, the movie shows some sympathy toward the aliens. GRADE = C

STRATEGY AND TACTICS - The Mimics apparently conquer Europe easily and seemingly are not content with that. One has to wonder what is stopping them. They are clearly superior to humans and a late scene indicates they can cross the Channel. They purposely lose a battle at Verdun to lure the UDF into a full-scale invasion of France. The Mimics can reset time to adjust strategy and tactics. As in most movies of this type, they are undefeatable if not for bad luck. The UDF strategy is to coordinate the invasion with the Eastern Front efforts of Russia and China. D-Day obviously influenced the script. The invasion is shows this as J Squad paradrops onto the beach and attempts to carve out a beachhead. There is no shore bombardment to speak of. There are no armored vehicles, although it is obvious that infantry are no match for the Mimic warriors. And, as usual, no use of nukes even though the movie makes it clear that Europe has been depopulated. The finale is a commando raid which is reminiscent of many traditional war movie suicide raids (think "Dirty Dozen"). GRADE = C

The movie, because it is aimed at a young adult audience, does not get deep into strategy and tactics. We know the enemy uses swarm tactics, as is common in sci-fi movies. Their strategy is unclear. The movie implies that the Earth leaders have demonized them and exaggerated their threat. On the other hand, in a nice twist, it appears the humans are determined on a pre-emptive attack to finish any threat the Formics might offer. Tactically, the book spent a lot of time on Ender's innovative tactics in the battle room, but the movie glosses over this. In the end, Ender is willing to sacrifice part of his fleet to infiltrate the enemy defenses. He controls the fleet as a gamer would, so most of the intended audience can relate to it.  GRADE = D

WEAPONRY - EOT is set in 2015 (why?), but the movie provides the infantry with exoskeletons called “combat suits”. The suits are heavily armed. One arm has an assault rifle, another a triple barrel cannon. Above one shoulder is an autocannon and the other supports a 16 shot grenade/missile launcher. Overcompensation, fellas? The exoskeletons are realistic and cool. Rita uses an edged weapon because she is a bad-ass. The grunt Mimics are called drones and can fire explosive projectiles. They mainly kill by physical assault. GRADE = B

It is unclear what both sides armaments are. We are to assume they both have Star Wars type craft. Since Ender is not a pilot, but instead is something of an admiral, the movie does not dwell on the Device which is akin to the Star Wars’ Death Star beam. It’s a planet killer. GRADE = D

SPECIAL EFFECTS - The aliens are great and scary. The CGI is seamless and allows for realistic battles. The first invasion scene is one of the best combat scenes in a sci-fi war movie. There are some nifty explosions and general mayhem. The movie was nominated for a Saturn Award for Visual Effects and several awards at the Visual Effects Society Awards. GRADE = A

For a movie made in 2013 for over $100 million, the special effects are surprisingly lame. It is all CGI and has a video game look to it. The best effects are reserved for Ender’s mind game set in a fantasy world. The visuals are pretty amazing. Book readers will be disappointed in the depiction of the zero gravity “battle room”. Note no nominations for visual effects awards. GRADE = C

ANALYSIS: This was not much of a match. "Edge of Tomorrow" was one of the more inventive sci-fi offerings in a genre that is noted for imaginativeness. And the idea was carried out entertainingly with only a sappy ending marring it. "Ender's Game" also gets credit for being unique in its big plot device, but the finished product is missing the verve needed to leave the box and make an impression. As far as war movies, EOT is not an outstanding example of the genre. It is certainly more sci-fi than war, but strategy, tactics, and weaponry bear some semblance to a war movie. EG uses a military setting and situation to explore deeper themes and seems to give short shrift to military logic. The superior sci-fi movie and the superior war movie won this match.

EDGE OF TOMORROW = 33
ENDER'S GAME = 26